It would be ridiculous of me to try and point out all the “highlights” (personal and otherwise) to which I’m looking forward. This will be my first look at Smoke or Fire, The Forecast, and my first look in a while at several others. In the interest of festival spirit, I’ll be posting writeups of a few bands each day in the run-up to the three day festival, which takes place from August 31 to September 2 in the mile high city.

Due to a magic disappearing/reappearing computer cable, I wasn’t able to get around to posting this until today, even though the show was last Saturday. I’m new to this stuff, alright?

The Zombie Lounge is close to the perfect venue for this kind of show, featuring the kind of gritty punk rock bands that would have been right at home at CBGB’s before it became the pay to play mecca of Long Island post-hardcore bands. The sound isn’t great (vocal mics only), but sound, as far as I’m concerned, is of secondary importance to presence and proximity. The Zombie delivers on both counts, and Another Zeke Productions really does a good job of bringing harder bands to town.

Cabron was up first. Though I missed their first two songs, I was treated to yet another serving of SST-style punk rock. They occupy the rehearsal space right next to ours off Mission Gorge, so I’m pretty familiar with their musical offerings. They sounded much better than their last few shows, which took place at the well-intentioned by acoustically-challenged Voz Alta.

Next up was Drunken Boat. Hailing from Portland, Drunken Boat play fast, sing-along punk rock in the vein of a lot of No Idea bands and local heroes Vena Cava. Too bad those guys weren’t out at the show, as I think they would have dug it. To be honest, they weren’t all that tight on this occasion. Seeing them the next day, my belief that it might just be an off night for them was confirmed.

Third was the mighty, mighty Git Some. Git Some is one half of Planes Mistaken for Stars (Neil and Chuck, playing bass and guitar, respectively) fronted by Denver’s own King Midas (everything he does musically is gold) Lucious Armand Fairchild. I’ve seen Git Some on the order of ten times or so; mayhem is usually a given (I’ve seen Luke fall forward–not catching himself at all–and take a steel pipe in the throat, get up, and continue without missing a beat) and brutal, Black-Flag-meets-Motorhead-meets-Jesus-Lizard punk is usually on offer. But with the addition of new drummer Andrew Lindstrom, the band has really moved from being one of my favorite bands of friends to one of my favorite bands, period. For fans of hard music of various stripes, missing these guys was practically criminal. It’s all the good things about hardcore stripped of the agenda, all the great things about metal and hard rock stripped of the unnecessary machismo. I just can’t say enough good things about this band.

Last but not least was Barfer? At this point, I’m not going to address the rumors running around about these guys, except to say that the focus should be squarely on the music. I’ve seen all of Barfer’s shows save two, and this was definitely their tightest as a musical ensemble. Given the particular musical vision to which they adhere, that’s saying something. Mikey, like a man on shrooms, seems to find something on which to fixate each time. This time it was poor Ziggy’s baseball cap, which Mikey donned to marvelous effect on several occasions. Otherwise, there were lots of odd time signatures, lots of screaming in people’s faces, and lots of exposed skin and hair. You know: the usual.

I lied. Barfer? wasn’t last. The honor went to Tiltwheel, who I missed while on a beer run. Oh, the humanity. I’m sure I’ll have ample opportunity to see them again.

So, after spending the week with my family in Connecticut, I got to spend last evening with some good friends in New York City. Oddly enough, a band called Ra Ra Riot was playing at the South Street Seaport. TNA played with Ra Ra Riot in Nashville last year, and their sound check was so shockingly good that I immediately called our label, publicist and booking agent to tell them about them. Ra Ra Riot are from Syracuse, on their way up (in a big, big way–with no management and no label, they nevertheless got a booking deal with the Agency Group), and just experienced one of the most awful things a band can experience. While on tour, their drummer, John Pike, was found dead on June 4. The band are quite young, as well, and enduring something that I, as a musician, found almost to be too much to take. I got to offer my condolensces to a couple of them and wish them well. They certainly deserve it.

Watching them last night, I noticed that the majors were out in force. Apparently Universal is trying to sign them, and I saw A&R from a couple other labels passing out afterparty wristbands for the wine-and-dine portion of the evening. But why, I’m asking myself, would an indie pop band like Ra Ra Riot sign with a major? What can the major do for them that a smaller label can’t do these days, and won’t the major ask for more (look out for the term “360 deal,” music industry wags)?

My thoughts on the subject were somewhat confirmed later at the bar. An acquaintance of mine is a product manager for a major label, and his view of the current situation is even more pessimistic than mine. To say that the majors are unsure as to how to proceed would imply that they had several courses of action in hand and were simply trying to choose between them. There’s nothing on the dry erase board. They are dead reckoning.